At 05:24 AM 5/16/97 +0100, Marisa Price wrote:

Um.. no. I believe -ko is a dimutive. Such as -ita in Spanish means "little".
This dimutive is very popular with women's names... such as Rumi-ko, Ma-ko,
Mina-ko, etc.

  Some younger Japanese women are now dropping the -ko from their names
because they regard the -ko as demeaning.  This attitude is mostly found in
professional women.  Several of my classmates have dropped the -ko from
their names.

                                                                     dml